It’s Father’s Day today, so I thought it would be fun to think about some ‘book dads’. Here are some of my favourites:

Bronze medal: this goes to David, Matthew’s dad in John Wyndham’s Chocky. He’s very supportive of Matthew and spends the last few pages of the book conversing with the alien life-form living inside his son’s head, which I think shows a remarkable degree of coolness.

Silver medal: this one’s for Walt, Jeremy’s long-suffering dad in the Zits cartoons by Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman. Walt’s an orthodontist and has a lot to put up with at home too. Like Jeremy’s house-sized piles of laundry and wine glass-cracking music – not to mention his driving.

Gold medal winner, and being quite serious for a moment, has to be Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird. Scout and Jem are the luckiest kids in the book world, in my opinion.

Honourable mentions for:

Mr Bennet, Elizabeth’s dad in Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice. He had a lot to put up with too.

Pa, aka Charles Ingalls in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House… books. NOT the television series Pa – he was missing the beard that Laura admired so much!

Last but not least, Pongo in Dodie Smith’s 101 Dalmations. This poor father had fifteen puppies all at once (his wife Missis actually did the hard bit there) and then had to save them all from Cruella de Vil. And he did a great job, too.